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kiwi farms

Almost two years ago I woke up at 1am to a message from a friend begging me to scrub my blog of any information about her, which I immediately did. She told me a group called Kiwi Farms had found me. Who? I had no idea but would soon find out.

That day found me watching my statistics skyrocket to over one thousand views. I’d wanted viewers but not this way, not from trolls. Because, when you get down to it, that’s all they are. The weird part is they claim they read my blog but it’s like getting it read by a semi literate monkey. Nothing that comes out on their end remotely resembles my life.

I stopped reading their posts ages ago but was still getting screen shots and updates from Kait, until yesterday that is. Yesterday she sent me a screen shot where someone by the moniker Abortions4All claimed that since I’m slightly more romantically interested in women than men, I must be incestuously grooming Colin to be female. Pardon me while I go gag.

There is nothing healthy there. No reason to wade through their increasingly demented sludge, even via screen shot. The life they depict is nothing like mine. The me they depict is nothing like me. They live in a fantasy world and have created something that is linked to me only by name and a tiny handful of warped facts. The rest is all fiction. They aren’t worth my time, even in 10 second readings via Kait’s messenger. My life is better than that. I’m better than that.

Also, I just discovered how to hide them as spam in my statistics so I don’t even have to see them there anymore, which is a relief. If you’re dealing with them, you can see three dots beside their name in your statistics. Click on those and you’ll get a spam option.

I don’t want to leave this post on a sour note so here’s a clip of me singing karaoke at my friends’ house last night. Sorry about the quality, it was recorded on my phone (hence the weird angle and my startled expression) and I was using a $20 microphone from Superstore LOL

An update: My curiosity got the best of me and I went into the Kiwi Farms thread and found their newest comments. They are so dense they think my quote from their blog is my own writing, even with the person’s user name right there. Plus they’ve made up a bunch of fake quotes and are busy debating them as if they’re real. I don’t know what drugs they’re on but they really should look into rehabilitation. That look into the page was more than enough for me. I feel like I spent that time wading through dog shit.

I’m almost offended at the poor quality of trolls I ended up with but it’s better to have incompetent trolls that I can ignore than intelligent ones, that’s for sure.

My morning started with a letter from one of the kiwi farmers saying, “You need to quit this shit. You’re mentally destroying your son, for your own selfish reasons.”

It wasn’t really a surprise that they’re back. I don’t know if they’re aware of this but WordPress monitors where people are coming from and helpfully shares that statistic with their bloggers.

I know that’s small but, if you can’t read it, that’s 11 people from kiwifarms, which is a lot considering they copy each post they “critique”. I use the word critique loosely.

I don’t need to go on kiwifarms to know what they’re saying, in fact I never go there. Last time I discussed them, Kait sent me screenshots of the idiocy so I didn’t have to delve in. There’s only so much idiocy I can deal with. If anyone’s interested they’ll be saying what the above genius said albeit with a few more words.

They are so concerned about Colin (according to them) that they never pay attention to the words Colin himself says. Colin has persistently referred to himself as a trans female and has persistently explained he’s not transitioning because he wants to keep his fertility, something he just told the CAMH worker (the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) this afternoon. She told him that’s becoming increasingly more common, I presume as younger people attempt to transition and also want a family.

The kiwi farmers ignore that, in fact they ignore everything he says and make stuff up whole cloth just to make it more interesting for themselves. Sorry, our lives are pretty boring. If you want some excitement, maybe take up juggling swords or something.

A Facebook friend of mine has been beautifying her hate mail so I decided to give it a try with my scrapbooking supplies. I think it turned out quite well.

It really needs to be needlepointed

Then I checked my blog’s Facebook page and found a message from my ex, written through one of his myriad of profiles. He’s not only disowned both my kids (again) but this time he disowned his grandchild. Or, as Colin put it, “He disowned a fetus. Who disowns a fetus?” Then he threatened suicide sometime in the next year. But not now so he can’t get admitted. He’s gone so far as to carry around a letter in his pocket so none of us can visit him in the hospital or attend his funeral.

*wonders if he remembers that Kait’s his next of kin*

And no amount of absolute ignorance would be complete without a healthy dose of anti-vaxxers.

A friend of mine posted this gem and I just stared at it for a bit before snagging a screenshot. People actually believe this stuff. Worm ovaries? As a friend of mine said, “Can you imagine how hard those would be to find?” Another friend asked why it had to specifically be Cocker Spaniel kidneys and not a Great Dane. Probably the cuteness factor. They need a cute pup to tug on those heart strings. Cow heart strings to be exact.

As yet another friend pointed out, people today are too far away from serious diseases. They weren’t around for polio for example. They never showed up to school to find another empty chair. People back then stood in line to get their polio vaccine, just like people in rural Africa today will walk for miles to get their children vaccinated. They know the risks. Anti-vaxxers make them up instead.

We live in a society where a child’s death is a shock and almost unimaginable. Children are young and full of life. One hundred years ago people knew different. Children are fragile and illness could (and did) wipe out entire families in a matter of a week or two. That’s why when you go to an old graveyard, you will see a gravestone with a list of names and dates, all the way from little Penelope age 8 months to Matthew age 14. Sanitation made a huge difference with disease control but vaccinations are on the same pedestal for protection of lives. When you look at disease statistics, there’s a huge drop for sanitation and an equally huge drop for vaccines.

Out of the three things I’ve mentioned, it’s the anti-vaxxers who make me furious. They aren’t putting themselves at risk (unless their parents were cretins too and didn’t vaccinate) they’re putting their baby at risk and all the people who come in contact with their baby. The cancer patients, babies too young to vaccinate, children with a severe allergy to an ingredient, immunocompromised people, and the people whose vaccine simply didn’t take. And they sit there smugly claiming everyone else is sheep for listening to the medical field while they read discredited articles and outright fiction. But they’re being told they are the smart ones and it makes them feel special. They listen to people like David Cucumber Wolfe, who thinks mushroom spores are trying to make it to the sun and that mushrooms came from space. Oh and that it’s the salt in the oceans that keeps them from floating away. I wonder how he explains the Great Lakes?

And they’re going to pat their backs on protecting their children with essential oils (which can harm children, don’t do it) and homeopathy (which is another word for expensive water). And they’ll keep patting themselves on the back until more and more outbreaks start. And even then they’ll be idiots. I read a post recently from an anti-vaxx site and a heartbroken mother had a young child die from some vaccinable disease and she sat at her computer saying she would never vaccinate, wouldn’t the vaccine have made that disease worse for her little boy? And I just wanted to reach through the screen and shake her and tell her to wake up, she’s the sheep and the “natural health” people are making a fortune off her and her fellow idiots. Google Mercola’s mansion if you don’t believe me.

But I’m not the jackass whisperer so, instead I’m going to work on my book and have a bowl of minestrone for dinner. And I’ll try to decide if my waist needs me to make another batch of homemade biscuits and if my mind and heart needs another stroll through Facebook and a hundred posts about little stolen children living in cages. Maybe I’ll just use messenger. And the cretins will live their lives and I’ll live mine. And Colin will continue to be female while masquerading as a cis male. And the kiwi farmers will continue to have a conniption fit every time that’s mentioned.

And, yes, I’m going to make those biscuits because life is short and biscuits are yummy.

Nothing good ever comes from a message at 1am. That’s when I woke up and found a note from a friend warning me that I’d been doxxed. Apparently a small horde of them lives hangs out at a website where they have nothing better to do than spend their days anonymously mocking people.

All they managed to do is discover my real name (Kathleen) and the names of Emma and Jeremy. Oh and our Facebook pages. Emma alternated between furious and laughing at the irony of these people outing us while hiding behind their pseudonyms and cartoon pictures.

“Mom, they don’t have any personal information about themselves at all. It’s all fake names and pictures. When you click on their names, they have nothing.”

If you get doxxed, be prepared for a whole whack of misinformation. They skim through posts and only seem to read about every second or third word (if that). They have a habit of making stuff up whole cloth too. None of them correct each other’s errors either, presumably out of a fear of being seen as supporting the person they’re doxxing. Which is understandable, it’s not like the lot of them have an ounce of empathy combined.

Right now they’re claiming Jeremy functions at about the age of 7 or 8 years old, which would make them severely developmentally delayed. I’d love to know what 7 year old makes their own computers and sets up networks. Jeremy is delayed emotionally, but only by a year or two. Otherwise they’re mainly severely learning disabled. And the trolls are raking Jeremy through the coals as some major abuser.

*looks at Jeremy asleep with two cats*

Yep, they’re terrifying all right.

I think the most hilarious part is the pearl clutching over brightly dyed hair. They literally call it “Danger Hair” as if it’s going to jump up and bite someone. It’s coloured, not radioactive.

The second funniest is the general poor comprehension and their inability to realize this. At one point someone finds my post in which Jeremy talks about a nonbinary character in a cartoon called Gurren Lagann. Someone claimed that’s their favourite show yet had no idea that the flamboyantly gay character Leeron exists. Instead, they gravitated right to Nia, an extremely feminine (and female) character. Almost as if they have a huge bias.

If you have a blog that centres on LGBTQ issues (especially trans issues) it’s important to keep yourself as safe as possible. Use a fake email address for your blog, complete with fake information. If I remember correctly, I’m 73 years old according to my information. Setting up the blog with fake information helps too.

The part I slipped up on is pictures. When I first started out, I made sure to keep every picture under false names because the picture name shows when you open it in a new link. I got lazy after a year or so because “who was going to go through that much effort”. TERFS, that’s who (remember they apparently have loads of free time). So rename your pictures before you upload them.

If you have a Facebook profile, lock it down. That part is so easy. Just go to the privacy settings and make sure you have your phone number set to friends only and your other information to “friends” or “friends of friends”. The good news is privacy settings confuse the hell out of them. They’re still trying to figure out why I don’t have photos from 2011 onward (other than profile pictures). So far they’ve determined I’ve deleted them all, something that would make my friends laugh out loud. I’m known for being a little snap happy.

You can hide your friends list as well but that’s not in the privacy settings (of course). You need to go to your profile page on the desktop and click on Friends (right below your banner picture). Your friends list will pop up with an edit pencil on the right. Click on the picture to change your friends list settings (mine is set to just me). You can also hide the people, places, and lists you follow from there as well.

I live in Canada, the land where LGBTQ rights are protected and our prime minister marches (under glitter no less) in pride parades. But if you live in Trump Land (or somewhere more restrictive), don’t mention where you live. Or just drop a random city in. It’s not like they’re going to check.

And, if they do dox you, take a deep breath. It’s not the end of the world. In fact, you can think of it as a badge of honour. They only dox the people who are out there making a difference.